Posts Tagged ‘delicata squash’

Touched 90F at the beginning of the week, then June Gloom came through and cooled things off, for a bit. Looks like the coming week will be more of the same — warm, then cool.

Bought my last two tomato seedlings for the year — Cherokee Purple for the south side of the house (I moved the Patio tomatoes back up onto the…deck), and Pink Accordion to round out Section 1. Planted them Tuesday evening. Mosquitoes were fierce. The garden is like one of those yellow fever labs in Panama. Should have waited an hour for when a gust front came through. Also planted a Bush Buttercup squash in a deck container. We’ll see how big a bush it is.

I have always had problems with squirrels digging up my seedlings. They’re not after the plants, just looking for some fresh-turned earth to bury peanuts in, the way squirrels have done for thousands of years. I’ve tried making anti-squirrel cloches by cutting the bottom off of plastic water bottles, but the interior gets too hot, and when I pull them up they want to bring the plant with them. So I got the idea of using those wire gadgets that go in your downspouts and help stack up the leaves so they impede the flow. Unfortunately, all our local hardware store has are some newfangled cut-and-stretch aluminium mesh things that look like they’ll be as bad as water bottles when the time comes to lift them. I’ll try them anyway.

What I wanted

What I got

Put two of the gutter-cloches on some just-sprouted peas in Section 3, and two on newly planted Delicata and Bush Buttercup squash in Section 4.

As has become traditional, the publication of last Monday’s report was immediately followed by two days of wild weather, with sustained winds of 40mph gusting to 50. When it wasn’t winding it was raining, about half an inch worth.

Despite the lack of frost, the long beans didn’t survive. By Monday afternoon they were all wilted, and the beans were still only 3″ long. The lemon cucumbers didn’t survive. There was only one worth picking. As a precaution, I harvested the KHG tomatoes and squash. Less than half a basket. I also harvested the just-breaking pumpkin, and found it quite orange on the ground side (22lb).

The projected lows were in the lower 30’s with one night of light frost, so I harvested any tomatoes with color from the container plants, and then watered them and wrapped them all in plastic. I don’t plan to open it up for a week or more. I don’t expect to get more than 5lb of tomatoes there, bringing the total to maybe 40lb or so. This time last year I had close to 100lb.

I harvested the KHG corn, 10 ears of corn, 30oz worth (when husked, but not stripped from the cob), two were six inch long monsters. It tasted much better than the deck-grown, but I still think it’s too much trouble.

In KHG Section 2, where I planted lots of lettuce two weeks ago, almost nothing has come up. Well, a mass of seedlings came up in one corner, then disappeared. I suspect slugs. On Sunday, our last really warm day for a while, I replanted, and then liberally dusted with diatomaceous earth. I used that heavily earlier in the year, and am down to my last 40lb.

Cooked up one of the Delicatas. They’re a lot like Acorn squash, with a slightly sweeter flavor and a slightly different texture. We will do them again next year. Note that they were nothing like the picture on the packet. The packet squash are long things, like pie pumpkins. Our Delicatas were the same size and shape as an Acorn squash, but the packet-depicted Delicata coloring.

And just like that, we’re autumnal and I’m doing some shutting-down-the-garden things. The weather this week was cool and intermittently rainy. Highs in the mid-60’s (with a couple in the 70’s) and lows in the mid 40’s. The forecast is for a continuation of the trend — lows around 40, highs around 60, with intermittent rain.

We’ve got some men coming round next week to cut the excess bits off our trees, the ones the pumpkins are growing under. Harvested the ripe pumpkin (19lb), and moved a crown squash vine with one adolescent squash out-of-the-way of the boots. I’m not going to count the pumpkins in the weekly weight totals, that would be like piling on.

Great Pumpkin

Harvested the deck corn. 16 plants => 8 ears in the 4″-6″ range. 22oz total trimmed ear weight. I suspect I didn’t grow enough plants for them to pollinate properly. 15-20 plants left, over in the KHG, but they went in later. Given all the problems I’ve had, for such little gain (the flavor was good, but it was tough, and stuck to my teeth), I’ll probably not plant corn again.

All that work for this?

Originally we were forecast to hit 34F next Friday night (now the predicted low for the week is 39F), so I trimmed the tomato plants way back, to try to get some ripenizing in before then. On Saturday I harvested everything that had any color. I’m hoping the real frosts hold off, because much of my garden production last year was at the end of September and beginning of October. A little disappointed with the KHG tomatoes. 14lbs of ripe or ripening or green-but-my-shears-slipped. Almost all under 2oz, or less. Almost all Early Girls. The two biggest were 6oz. Some didn’t produce at all –they were long leggy things that were just now starting to flower. Another two months of warm weather — say, into mid-December — and I’d have a bumper crop. Also picked the two Delicatas that I’d been letting grow. Except that they didn’t. They came in at 2lb each, about the size and shape of an Acorn squash, only yellow. There’s half a dozen summer squash that I decided to hold off on, plus maybe a dozen KHG tomatoes. So far, the container tomatoes have outproduced the KHG, but I think that’s because they got a lot more sun.

Also made a first pass through the deck containers. About 30 ripe, etc, totalling 4lb.

My foot long beans are now up to three inches. I doubt they make it. My lemon cucumber (container) produced a myriad of blossoms, and no fruit – it was planted late, as a cabbage replacement. My dwarf watermelon produced one grape-sized melon that I doubt will have a chance to get to be plum sized.

The weather this week was the usual. Highs near 90, lows near 60. A smidgen of rain on the edge of a passing thunderstorm. Not enough to wet the ground under the trees.

UPDATE Monday 2AM: Well, that was fun. Line of severe thunderstorms came through just as we were starting Episode 10 in our marathon rewatch of Girls und Panzer. A one minute microburst blew stuff all over the deck, including the container corn. Power out for hours and just came back on. I’ll update again before I post this, but right now, there’s still two episodes to go.

UPDATE Monday 6AM: Damage confined to the deck. A couple tubs blown over. One blown off its stand. None of the corn actually broken. The same overhanging trees and fence that protect the KHG from exposure to sunlight protected it against the wind, so no damage there.

UPDATE Monday 9AM: One of the corstalks, back in the corner, was snapped off like it was a sugarcane. I’ve staked most of the remaining corn.

UPDATE Monday 9PM: Evidently, we doged a pretty big bullet. The really nasty storms cam through north and south of of us, snapping big trees and tearing up trailers and cutting off power for thousands in Spokane and the general environs.

Storm Damage

Prior to 10PM Sunday night, this was our situation:

Squirrels got into the Section 2 corn, the most mature, and pretty well trashed it. I salvaged about five immature ears, got half a cup of kernels. I’m spraying the deck corn and the Section 1 corn with hot pepper solution every day. We’ll see.

The red tide is a’coming. Just not yet. Harvested eight smallish tomatoes (20 oz total). Probably ten more ready by next week. Another 50 or 60 sitting there, green.

Otherwise, got two summer squash (12oz), one 2.5lb 8-Ball that I harvested later than I should have, and one 2.0lb crown squash that I thought was an 8-ball (and I probably harvested too early). Tomorrow I’ll post a recipe for 8-Ball squash.

There are about six or eight Delicata/Spaghetti squash coming along. I slash the names ’cause I’m not sure. They don’t have green striping like the Delicata are supposed to, but they have longitudinal groves, which the Spaghetti are not. Hide and watch.

Planted more Brassicae in Section 1, under the corn and next to the peas. Brussels sprouts and Broccoli on one side, Cabbages and Cauliflower on the other. Should be easy to keep straight. Cabbage should be ready mid-November, and the rest at the end of the month. Not sure if they’ll die of frost, or if they’ll cross-pollinate and produce monsters, but once again, we’ll see. Saturday I dug over the Section 2 cornfield and planted spinach and lettuces. Never had much luck with spinach.

The hops are doing well. Much of the browned leaf areas are sprouting again (piling on the compost and giving them more water did the trick), and the tops have bushed out something fierce.

Almost ready for beer-making

To bad this is one of the areas we sprayed for carpenter ants — I wouldn’t want to eat anything out of here for another couple of years. I planted the hops as ornamentals, and to give shade in the late Summer. I have high hopes for next year.

The weather was warm but not hot all week, brushing up against 90F over the weekend, with some clouds Satuday night that helped the night stay warm, which helped the tomatoes. Big wind scheduled for this week — started kicking up Sunday afternoon. I watered heavily this morning to counter the drying effects.

The scattering of chard I put into Section 3 is finally big enough to use, but it’s bepestered of leaf miners. I did a rough triage Saturday morning. Bad leaves to the compost, damaged leaves for trimming and salad, and big leaves to the salad. Corn isn’t growing fast enough to be ready before first frost, but the peas next to each stalk are getting big enough to start using them for support. My countercritter ops seem to be working, and I haven’t lost any more stalks.

On the squash front, there’s one more buttercup squash ready to harvest, and two or three smallish ones that I hope will develop. The delicata squash are finally starting to produce — three small (one inch) fruits. The summer squash are cranking along, producing one dinner-size squash every other day. Harvested one spaghetti squash, another is ready to harvest, two are getting there, and six or so more are in various stages of growth. The harvested one is a varietal I’m not familiar with, producing mild, slightly greenish strands. Went well with curried chicken on a bed of chard.

Outside of the KHG, the bush cucumber produced two fruit, at about a pound apiece. That’s as much cucumber as we can use all autumn. The bush melon has one three-incher. Cut all of the rhubarb stalks I could find. The tomatoes are encroaching there as well. I’ll give some away, and MJ is making various ‘lades, ‘nades, and elixers with the rest.

We ate our tomato harvest from last week. MJ had half a tomato, and I had the other half. Three of the container tomatoe plants are showing pink in various places, and I harvested two that I’m going to let finish off in the house. I thought there was nothing but green in the KHG, but on Sunday I found a 6oz and a 2oz that were almost ripe, buried in the jungle. The tomatoes seem to be winning the fight against the squash.